Arjan Singh Bhullar desperately wanted his sophomore appearance in the Octagon to take place on the March UFC Fight Night event in London, England.

The Canadian heavyweight represented his country on the wrestling mats there during the 2012 Olympic Games, and with London boasting a large South Asian community, Bhullar felt the bustling city was the perfect place for him to make his second march to the Octagon. It wasn’t meant to be.

“It’s weird the way the world works and the way that life works out,” Bhullar told Sporting News on Wednesday, days prior to his fight UFC on FOX fight versus Adam Wieczorek. “We were trying and trying to get on that UFC London card in early March thinking that I competed there for the Olympics, there is a big Indian community, this and that, but for the life of us, we couldn’t get on the damn card.

“Next thing you know, they book us for April 14 and I’m like, ‘Are you kidding me? I didn’t know there was a card on the 14th — that’s even better.’”

April 14 is the holiday of Vaisakhi, a day celebrated by Sikhs the world over as the birth of the Khalsa, a way of living devised by Guru Gobind Singh in 1699, and the formation of the Khalsa panth of warriors.

Long before he arrived in the UFC, Bhullar sought to use whatever platform he had to be a positive role model within the Sikh community and provide an example of a proud, successful Sikh athlete competing at the elite level.

Since getting the call of the Octagon, the 31-year-old Richmond, British Columbia native has maintained that position and upped the ante, working with the UFC and its outfitting partners at Reebok to allow him to wear his turban to the cage on Fight Night and in producing a signature line of shirts which he’s debuting this weekend.

While those opportunities might sound insignificant to some, they mean the world to Bhullar because when he was growing up, he couldn’t identify himself within the scores of professional athletes competing in televised sporting events each weekend.

Now he hopes to be that person for the next generation.

“It is a huge deal,” said Bhullar, the first fighter of South Asian descent to sign with the UFC. “You look at how many people we have worldwide and throughout history, no one has been able to have a platform in any major sport to be able to speak and tell our stories.

“Now Reebok is coming out with shirts, so we can be on a major clothing brand and tell our story that way. These opportunities have never been open to us, and that includes me growing up. If I had someone like that who looked like me, talked like me, ate the same food, had the same upbringing, it would have meant that much more to me to be connected with that person.

“I put myself in those shoes as a little kid and I’m hoping I’m able to do that for someone else now.”

Being a beacon for a massive population and trying to lift them up while chasing professional success is a daunting task, but Bhullar wouldn’t have it any other way because he knows nothing else.

From an early age, it was instilled in him by his mother that he was going to have the opportunity to make an impact on this world and that he needed to use whatever platform he was afforded to do good.

He was also bolstered by the actions of his childhood idol, Muhammad Ali, a man he’s studied diligently not for his prowess in the ring, but his activism and the impact he made within his community and the world at large.

“Records are meant to be broken, but that kind of impact lasts for generations and that aspect excites me,” he said of Ali’s influence and his desire to have a similar influence on his own community. “It’s very fulfilling to me, so I guess you can say that I’m a little selfish in that manner because it adds more purpose and motivation to what I’m doing — it fills up my tank — and I think that there is a deeper meaning to what we’re doing here.

“It’s too shallow to think we’re just coming here and fighting. It’s too basic for me. I need more than that.”

At the same time, Bhullar is acutely aware of the fact that winning is the key to all of this. In order to have a platform and represent his community, his faith and his people at the highest level in mixed martial arts, he has to continue winning.

Thus far in his pro career, he’s a perfect 7-0. After years competing on the wrestling mats around the globe, the former Pan-Am Games gold medalist knows what it takes to compete at a world-class level and isn’t going to be shaken by the bright lights, big venues and crush of attention that comes with fighting in the UFC.

In fact, he embraces it.

“I’m very aware of my priorities,” said Bhullar, who earned a unanimous decision victory over Luis Henrique in his promotional debut at UFC 215 in September. “None of this other stuff matters unless you win. I was raised as such, my coaches have told me that for years and years. I am programmed that way.

“What I’ve told my management and everybody else is that I know how to win, I know how to compete — I’ve been doing it for so long. The switch will be on; I just want to make sure I’m able to do everything else as well.

“Get me in a 50,000-seat stadium. Let’s go to India. Let’s do this thing,” he said. “I’m excited for that stuff. That’s what gets me up and through the daily grind. That experience is huge. The higher up you go, everyone is big, fast, strong, going to be in shape— all that — but it’s the mental game, the insides that separate people. I have that. I have that experience.

“You can prepare as well as you want, but are you able to execute? A lot of people aren’t. A lot of people are the same as they are in the gym and I choose to be better than I was in training and rise to the occasion. I think that that experience and that ability to perform are huge because not everyone has that.”

Saturday night, inside the Gila River Arena, Bhullar intends to find out if Wieczorek possess those traits and the ability to avoid the onslaught that is coming his way.

“The game plan is always the same — I’m going to punch, punch, punch, come forward, pressure, wrestle him up and beat him up,” he said with a laugh. “That’s what we do. That’s our (modus operandi) — you know it’s going to come, but the question is can you stop it and I don’t think Adam can.”